Primitive Secrets (16 page)

“Cause I think you need a drink before I take you home.”

Chapter 23

Storm's knees still quivered and she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep for hours. Hamlin's suggestion to stop at the Ama struck her just right. A low, weather-beaten hut that squatted between million-dollar condos along Waikiki beach, the Ama was named for the outrigger float on the traditional Polynesian canoes. It was an old favorite of hers. Years ago, back when she had to use a fake ID to get in, she and Martin and a few choice friends used to go to the one-roomed, salt-crusted tavern.

Not much had changed in the past couple of decades. The place was still decrepit and the Ama's tables were almost all filled. Two ceiling fans stirred the humid air. The bouncer who hovered inside the front door was a big Hawaiian guy who wore his hair in a long ponytail with a headband of traditional fabric. Hamlin nodded at him when they entered. “Hey, Kimo,” he said in a soft voice.

Kimo's teeth shone brilliantly against his dark skin. The smile sent slivers of light flashing from his dark eyes. Then he bent his head down and resumed plucking the slack-key guitar he held on his lap.

Hamlin led Storm around the island-like bar, still draped with the same musty rope, fishing nets, and glass ball floats Storm remembered from years ago, to a small table at the front window. The window extended the length of the room and opened directly onto the beach. Hurricane shutters were propped up by gray, weathered two-by-twos at regular intervals along the face of the small building. Neither glass nor screens hindered the briny trade winds that whispered through the place.

The Ama persevered on the “gold coast” of O'ahu, smack-dab in the midst of some of America's most expensive real estate, because well-connected kama‘aina and long-time residents had pooled their considerable resources and made an offer on the property. They were making a last-ditch attempt to save it from the foreign developers who, with ringing pile drivers and stacks of cash, built twenty-plus story hotels and condos along one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

They'd not been able to out-bid the Japanese national who planned another luxury hotel, but they had had enough money to satisfy the original owner of the place, who grew up in the Waikiki that bordered the pig farms of Kahala. Fortunately, he accepted the lesser millions with glee; he merely wanted to retire with enough to take his wife to Vegas twice a year. He could still take his grandchildren and all their friends, too.

The Ama endured. The new hai, or partnership of owners, left the place with sand and shells on the floor, apparently replaced only what threatened to collapse, and continued to encourage homegrown musicians to come for impromptu jams.

Storm felt a surge of nostalgia. She liked the fact that it hadn't changed and remembered how she and Martin would show up, not knowing if it would be a quiet evening or whether Peter Moon or George Winston would be working out harmonies, their groupies in tow. One time, they'd seen Eric Clapton. Rumor was that the owners made just enough to cover expenses, and no one wanted to look too closely at how they afforded the property taxes on that oceanfront land. It was one time that the widespread nepotism in the islands seemed to actually work for the people at large.

Storm dropped into a chair that wobbled a bit and turned her face to the incoming breeze. Hamlin did the same. Neither of them spoke for a while. Storm closed her eyes to the soothing breeze off the ocean, took a deep breath of the cleansing air, and let it out slowly. She felt like she could sit here all night and watch the gentle surge of the Pacific, let its hidden powers soothe her anguished thoughts. The tension seeped from her shoulders. Just being near the ocean had a purifying effect.

When the waitress set down their draft beers, Hamlin took a grateful quaff and sat back in his chair. “What were you doing down there, anyway?”

Storm drew her eyes from the foam that skittered along the hard, fine sand. “Chinatown, you mean?”

“Sure. You scared me to death,” Hamlin said.

“I scared you?” Storm snorted. “What were you doing there?”

Hamlin narrowed his eyes and gave her a half-smile. “Okay.” He took another sip of beer. “I was looking for someone.”

“You told me that part already.”

“Yeah, well, it's a client.”

“Sounds like what I was doing,” Storm said. She looked back out at the ocean and wished that the lights from the Waikiki strip a half-mile down the beach weren't quite so bright. She could barely see the phosphorescence of the waves.

“It's also a friend,” Hamlin said.

“Same here.”

Hamlin put his mug down with a crack. “Christ, Storm.” He sighed. “It's this guy I've known for years. He's gay.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” She tilted her head at him and raised one eyebrow.

“He was my college roommate. He knew about my…my family and encouraged me to move here after law school.”

“That's a long time to be with someone. Kind of like a marriage. How'd you sandwich Meredith into that relationship?” Storm sat back in her chair.

“Storm, he's not my lover. Never has been. Whether you can accept it or not, he's a friend.” Hamlin frowned down at the table. “And he's got some problems.”

Storm stiffened. “He has AIDS?”

“We don't know, yet. You saw him with Martin, didn't you?”

She nodded.

“I suspected that.”

Storm bristled. “What do you mean?”

“I wondered about Martin—” He swirled his beer in the mug. “You didn't know, I take it?”

Storm turned her head to the beach, away from Hamlin's gaze. The city lights looked like stars in the prisms of her tears.

Hamlin looked away, out at the water. “Want to take a walk?” His voice was soft.

Storm nodded without taking her eyes from the ocean. Hamlin laid a ten on the table and stood up. She rose, too, and he draped one arm casually across her shoulders. It felt good, supportive and warm.

On the beach, both of them stopped to take off their shoes and socks. They left them in a little pile by a deserted lifeguard stand and let the cool, damp grains of sand drizzle between their toes. Storm dragged her feet and enjoyed the pull on the muscles that ran down the fronts of her legs.

Hamlin kept pace while Storm, her arms wrapped around herself, meandered into the gentle waves that licked at her insteps, then her ankles. The water seemed to drain away some of her distress, carry it out to be feasted upon by the night scavengers of the reef.

Storm looked at the swath of moonlight on the dimpled water. So peaceful, lulling, illusive. Just a foot below the surface, life teemed with a ferocity that could be alarming. As a child, she had thrown pieces of fish and crab shells onto coral at the water's edge after the sun had set and watched moray eels emerge from where people had swum all day. Three and four feet long, they came with their mouths open and razor teeth glinting, until the sand writhed with them. Sharks fed when the sun's light faded, too, along with hundreds of species of carnivorous, cannibalistic fish. She understood the rules here better than in nighttime Chinatown.

“It must be a devastating secret for Martin.” Hamlin's soft voice broke into her thoughts.

“What makes you so sure?” Bitterness colored Storm's voice. “I'm sure his family knew. I'm just now realizing the secrets they all kept.”

“I know because my friend wouldn't tell me who he was seeing,” Hamlin said when he caught her sharp glance. He picked up a piece of coral. “You're right, the Hamasaki family has secrets, but I think Miles Hamasaki might have just discovered this one.”

“What gives you that idea?”

“I think Martin would have told you first.” He looked at her. “And the part about Hamasaki finding out is an idea I've been pondering the last few days.”

“Why?” Storm drew deep troughs in the sand with her toes.

“Look, families keep secrets from each other.” Hamlin kept his eyes on the running lights of a container ship, just visible on the horizon.

“Not the Hamasakis.”

Hamlin's voice was flat and low. “Everyone.” He was quiet for a few minutes while he skipped a few pieces of coral into the water. “Remember how I thought Hamasaki was preoccupied?”

“Sure, but that was because of Tom Sakai.”

“I don't think so. This was personal.”

“What makes you so sure?” Storm kicked a clump of seaweed, hard.

“The look on his face in the elevator one night after work.” Hamlin still wouldn't meet her eyes. “It corresponds with Chris telling me about his new love.”

“The artist? Is Chris the guy I saw in your office?” Her voice became hard. “Why didn't you tell me before I saw them in the bar together?”

“I thought about it. But I figured it was up to Martin.”

“Okay.” Storm's voice was gentler. “Chris was your college roommate?”

Hamlin nodded.

“How did they get together?” Storm asked. “Martin was in Chicago until we called him about Hamasaki's death.”

“So was Chris. He had an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. And he met this guy from Hawai'i. He was very happy because they had so much in common.” Hamlin smiled, but his eyes were sad. “I was glad for him. He'd had so many disappointments.”

“You were worried about AIDS,” Storm said.

Hamlin kicked at the sand. “About two months before Chris left for Chicago, he was raped. He'd gone to a bar to meet some friends for a farewell party. According to Chris, one of the guys, somebody's friend's friend, no one can really identify him now, made a pass at Chris. Chris gently rebuffed him, he says. Then he woke up in some rat hole on a mattress on the floor, hemorrhaging from rectal tears. Somehow, at four in the morning, he made it back to the bar and called me.”

Hamlin and Storm had wandered from the end of Waikiki Beach around Diamond Head crater to Diamond Head Beach, where the reef met the sand and peeked from the water at low tide. Here, the beach was wilder, untamed. Storm preferred it to the manicured stretch of Waikiki. Coral-encrusted lava rocks, deposited by bygone storms, littered the coarse sand. Honolulu's city lights were visible as a far-off blush in the sky. Moonlight and phosphorescence in the water illuminated their footsteps and each other's faces. Every few seconds, the lighthouse flashed a beam far out to sea, probing the blue velvet of the night. Even the trade winds gusted untamed and buffeted Storm's hair free of her braid. Hamlin's shirttail whipped around him.

Storm sat down and leaned against a boulder in the lee of the wind. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear and rested her chin on her knees. “That's awful,” she whispered. “Did you take him to the hospital?”

“Yes. They did a drug screen and found that he'd been given this stuff dubbed the ‘date drug' by the media a few years ago.” Hamlin sat down next to her.

“That sounds familiar.”

“Yeah.” Hamlin didn't hide the disgust in his voice. “It got some press a few years ago when frat guys were doping their dates in order to take advantage of them. It's called Rohypnol.”

“God,” Storm whispered. “Poor Chris. Did he ever figure out who this person was? Did anyone see him leave with this guy?”

“No, that's the really frustrating thing. I guess no one really knew who he was. He'd claimed to know someone who wasn't actually there that night and everyone believed him. Chris's friends had had a few drinks themselves and thought Chris was fine.” Hamlin let a handful of sand slip through his fingers. “Apparently, they kind of wandered away with their own romantic prospects and left him there.”

“I can see how that would happen,” Storm said. “It goes on pretty often with women.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

Storm swallowed hard. “Did he get an AIDS test?”

“Yeah, I made him get the test, and told him to get tested again, in about six months.”

Storm watched his eyes follow a ship's lights on the water. The thought flashed through her mind that not even a week ago, she'd thought of Hamlin as rakish in his expensive suits, tough, climbing the firm's ladder to a partnership. She'd also decided that anyone who could bed and maintain a relationship with Meredith Wo was off the charts on her own scale of alleged opportunism. She remembered Rick's betrayal with the owner of the lace g-string panties. And Rick wasn't as smart. Now she was observing a different side of Hamlin. He showed a sensitive streak and talked of a relationship that was not professionally expedient.

“You're worried,” she said. Her eyes dropped to a long thigh whose musculature was delineated by tight black denim. She jerked her eyes higher, to safer territory, only to find his face inches from hers. The warmth of his body surrounded her in the cool night air.

“Just my nature, I guess,” he whispered. With the crook of one finger, he tilted her chin up, paused for a second while he searched her eyes, and then kissed her. His lips were soft and searching, the mustache tickled her nose, and she responded. Her blood sang through her veins, while somewhere in the back of her mind, a little voice tried to chirp a warning. She ignored it.

She wound one arm around his shoulder. He smelled of warm skin, the sea, and night air. The second kiss was even sweeter.

When he lowered her a few inches to the sand, she pulled him close and kissed him again. “Hamlin,” she whispered. “We have enough problems already.”

Chapter 24

Hamlin grazed her lips with his and pulled back a millimeter. “Let's clear up one of them. Call me Ian.”

She kissed him again, relished the warmth of his thigh against one of her legs. “Not yet,” she murmured.

“You won't call me Ian?” He leaned on one arm and smiled down on her.

“No, I mean I need to slow down.” She ran two fingers down his cheekbone.

“You? The woman who neutered her mugger?” He kissed her lightly on the lips and cocked an eyebrow at her.

She drew back a couple of inches. “I'm a cautious person.”

Hamlin chuckled. “Right.” He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

Storm pushed up on one elbow. She gazed into Hamlin's face, then rolled over on her back and looked up at the stars. She could feel Hamlin's warmth next to her. One of his legs lay nearby and she moved hers a fraction to touch it. “Well, I'm trying to change my habit of barging into things. You know, bulldozing ahead before I think.”

Hamlin laughed out loud, kissed her on the forehead, then dropped down so that they both lay flat on their backs, hands behind their heads. The heavens spread above them like an indigo dome. “I saw a shooting star,” Hamlin said.

“Did you make a wish?” Storm's voice was husky.

He rolled over toward her. “A couple of them.” He took her hand. “One of them is that you get home safely. It's after one.”

Storm sat up with a start. “Oh God, I was going to get to the office early.”

“Me, too. I've got to be in court before eight.”

They strolled back to the Ama in comfortable silence. The bartender's bulky frame was silhouetted in the tavern's dim lights as he lowered the hurricane shutters. One by one, they snapped closed like eyelids.

Hamlin walked Storm to her car, watched her unlock the door, then put an arm on each side of her body. He leaned in close. “Drive carefully.” He brushed her lips with a kiss, then turned away. Storm watched him go back into the shadowy bar, then she bumped the VW out of the potholed parking lot onto the street.

She was glad no one was around to see her grin, all by herself at one o'clock in the morning. They'd think she was drunk, driving up Diamond Head Road, beaming like a fool and popping her head out the side window so that she could see the stars. The same stars she'd stared at with Hamlin.

The tickle of Hamlin's mustache and his warm kiss stayed on her lips. She ran the events of the evening through her mind, and even the sad parts didn't seem as bad as they had earlier. The scumbag on the street was exactly that, a pile of garbage not worth any more thought. Next time, she'd remember to put her knee in a vulnerable spot, hard. And Martin would get over his surprise. After all, she had. Plus, they were having lunch together tomorrow. She even had hope for Tom Sakai. Maybe she could help with the bone marrow drive or some of the fundraising. Put some signs up at the courthouse, get some publicity going.

Storm's cavorting mind halted. Tom Sakai? She had mentioned Tom to Hamlin by accident and Hamlin had taken it right in stride. He'd said Hamasaki wasn't depressed over Tom, that it was something more personal. Maybe Hamlin was right, but who had told Hamlin about Sakai and his illness?

Storm's fingertips chilled on the steering wheel. She pulled into her carport, turned off the car and sat for a moment, thinking. Had she mentioned Sakai to anyone other than Bebe and Aunt Maile? How about Lorraine? And why was Hamlin so knowledgeable on the subject of family secrets?

Storm heard Fang meowing outside the car. She stepped out of the VW and leaned down to stroke the cat. Lorraine knew about Sakai; in fact, Hamasaki himself had probably told several people in the office, especially if Meredith, Cunningham, and Wang were counsels for Sherwood Overton, the Unimed honcho.

She'd seen Overton himself hanging around the reception area. Absently, she walked into her house and flicked on the lights. Fang rubbed against her legs, trotted over to check her dish, then went back to Storm, purring like an outboard motor. Shoot, Overton was a fat cat who had probably been in everyone's office in the firm. Storm collapsed in a chair with relief. That's how Hamlin knew about Tom Sakai.

She dragged herself down the hall to brush her teeth. When she peeled off her jeans and tee-shirt, sand fell out of the pockets. Storm looked at the grains on the bathroom floor, shook her hair out of the French braid and listened to more sand skitter across the tile. Hell with it. She'd bathe in the morning and clean up the house after work tomorrow. She wasn't going to get enough sleep as it was.

When the radio alarm blasted some DJ's giddy voice at her, Storm pried open sticky eyelids. The guy should be muzzled, whooping like that at six o'clock in the morning. She pulled a pillow over her head, snuggled down, and tried to recall the remnants of a dream that still teased her. Something about O'Toole and his hypodermic needle again. Of course, O'Toole was a doctor. He probably gave dozens of injections every day. He gave her a flu shot last fall at Hamasaki's insistence. But Hamlin was in the dream, too. Telling her about Chris. There was something she needed to ask Hamlin about Chris, but she couldn't drag the thought back. Storm tried to burrow deeper, but sand in the sheets rasped against her arms. With a sigh, she threw back the covers, squinted against the light, and staggered to the shower.

In the office, Storm pushed aside files so they wouldn't get grease spots from the pastries she laid out on the blotter. The two chocolate chip scones smelled so good, she could hardly stand it. For some reason, her office smelled like good, rich coffee, too. Well, what do you know…a hot mug, with exactly the right amount of cream in it, sat on her desk. She picked it up and took a sip. Right amount of sugar, too, and still hot.

She set it down and walked into the hall. The light was on under Hamlin's door. She had a hand in the air, ready to knock, when he popped out, walking backwards while talking to his secretary. His briefcase was tucked under one arm and a stack of files under the other. “I'll be back before noon with luck.”

“How'd you know I'd get here in time to drink it?” Storm asked.

He grinned. “You're not so unpredictable, you know.”

“Huh. I'd better think about that.” She walked through the reception area with him and opened the door to the corridor. Her dream flickered back to her and she waited until they were alone in the hall. “That drug, the one the frat guys gave to girls in their drinks. It's tasteless?” She spoke in a low voice.

“Yeah, the ER docs figured it was in Chris's beer. He never knew.”

Storm turned around. “Thanks,” she said over her shoulder and walked with purpose back to the office. The elevator door nearly closed on Hamlin, who stared after her.

Storm closed her office door, sat down and took a big hit of the coffee Hamlin had made her. It was in his mug, the Wild Bill Hickok one. Storm would have taken time to appreciate Wild Bill's raffishness, but this morning she needed the stimulating properties of the caffeine on her brain cells. She dropped to her knees and pulled Hamasaki's cup in its plastic bag out from under the stack of dusty files. She was still stuck with the question of why Uncle Miles would drink coffee. That was a question that needed to be faced, but right now the idea of sedatives was bugging her.

Storm punched Detective Fujita's number into her phone. It was seven-thirty, but she could leave a message for him to call her back. She put her feet up on her desk and leaned back in her chair.

“Fujita.” He barked into the phone as if he'd spent the night at his desk. Maybe he had.

“Hello, this is Storm Kayama. I know you're busy, but I wondered if you could tell me a good laboratory for analyzing substances.”

“What're you up to, Ms. Kayama?”

Storm told him about the cup and how Hamasaki never drank coffee.

There was a second of silence on the line. “There was coffee in that cup he was holding.”

“I know. Was there any left in the cup when you found it?” Storm asked.

“Maybe a few drops and a couple of dribbles down the outside. Some had spilled on his desk blotter.”

Storm put her feet on the floor and leaned forward on her elbows. “This coffee business is bothering me. I'll pay for the analysis, of course.”

Storm could hear a huff of air being pushed from his nostrils. “Try Chem-Tox. It's a subdivision of one of the big pharmaceutical companies.” He gave her a phone number. “And Ms. Kayama, call me back, okay?”

“If you call me Storm. Thanks for your help.” She hung up just as someone knocked on her office door. She shoved Hamasaki's mug between her knees under the desk.

“Yes?”

The new receptionist poked her head in. “Martin Hamasaki called, but he wouldn't hold. Said he can't meet you for lunch today.” She closed the door again.

“Dammit.” Storm took a gulp of coffee, and narrowed her eyes at the wall opposite her. She snapped the phone up, and rang the Hamasaki house. Her aunt answered.

“Aunt Bitsy, is Martin there?” Storm gritted her teeth at her own rudeness. “Uh, how're you doing today?”

Aunt Bitsy remained unruffled. “I'm all right, dear. How are you?” She paused while Storm mumbled a few platitudes, then went on. “You just missed Martin. He ran out of here about five minutes ago.” She sounded like she'd been caught in the vapor trail of his escape.

“Oh. Did he take your car? Do you need a ride anywhere?”

“Thanks, honey, a friend of his picked him up. Michelle is picking me up for lunch. Then we're going to the temple to start shoingo for Miles. Would you like to come?”

“Thanks, Aunt Bitsy, but I'd better stay in the office and catch up. Is Martin meeting you?”

“No, he even canceled lunch with David. He didn't say when he'd be back.”

Storm hung up and sat back with a deep sigh. The bagged mug started to slip from between her knees. She grabbed it, set it on her desk, and stared at it. Martin had never run away from her, even during their few sibling fights. In fact, she was the one who would go lock her bedroom door and leave Martin banging away outside, swearing at her for burying her anger. Maybe she could track him down through Chris DeLario, but she'd have to wait for Hamlin to get back for that. The sculptor didn't have a listed phone number.

She finished the last swallow of Hamlin's coffee, which was lukewarm, grimaced, and stared at the bottom of the mug. Written in rambling script on the inside was, “Hedge your bets and keep your back to the wall. Congrats, Chris.”

Wasn't Hickok shot in the back during a poker game? Must be a private joke. She'd have to ask Hamlin. Clever buddies, those two.

She set the mug down and thought about the Hamasaki family. Jumbled thoughts without any conclusions fizzled through her mind. Loads of questions, no answers, and Martin avoiding contact. She was going to have to stay calm, collected, and exercise patience. A tough order.

Storm puffed out her cheeks and blew out the breath she'd been holding. At least she could call Chem-Tox and get one question off her mind.

One of the analysts answered the phone himself, to Storm's delight. He sounded enthusiastic about her questions and looked forward to seeing her around noon. He'd wait before he went to lunch. Storm put the receiver back and felt the muscles between her shoulder blades unclench a centimeter or two. Martin's broken lunch date at least gave her time to check the mug.

Storm jotted the Chem-Tox address in her date book. She had the same kind of date book that Hamasaki had used, the one she'd found in his briefcase. The one where he'd written “S.O.” at six-thirty on the night he died. Another loose end she needed to follow.

Right now, she had to forget about coffee-stained mugs and get to work on the file Wo and Wang had given her. It was another thread that led to Unimed. Storm scrutinized the front of the document. Dozens of yellow Post-it squares, covered with Wang's cramped handwriting, poked from between the pages. The guy must own stock in 3M.

She leafed through the file. Nothing electrifying. Unimed was petitioning the state for a “Certificate of Need,” a requirement in the state of Hawai'i for any multimillion dollar medical expenditure. The health maintenance organization wanted to purchase a magnetic resonance imaging scanner, one of the big diagnostic tools that medical centers clamored to have.

Storm could find information on state policy at the law library. She vaguely recalled that the state of Hawai'i had set limits on the numbers of certain expensive machines to be purchased within the state, with the idea that hospitals could share them. Maybe the bureaucrats believed that frivolous use of the insurance-guzzling diagnostics would be reduced, or maybe they felt the millions could be better spent in other areas. Storm wasn't sure.

She knew that having certain equipment gave a medical center an aura of progressiveness, which in this day and age attracted patients. When medical centers competed for contracts with the state and other large employment groups, they vied for millions. Storm flipped to the last page. Both Wang and Wo's names were on the contract. They needed her to do some footwork with the state, call the people in control, use Hamasaki's name to grease the wheels so that the agreement slid through without any hitches.

Storm went through the papers carefully, writing her own notes on a legal sheet. Sure enough, there were some holes that she knew that the Department of Health would want filled. The people in the DOH were number-crunchers, MBAs, CPAs. She needed to know a few more details before she took the contract over to them. It was a great reason to see Sherwood Overton and ask him if he'd met with Hamasaki one evening about this or a related topic.

A knock at her door caused Storm to raise her head. “Come in.”

Meredith Wo opened the door. She looked a little more alert than she had yesterday, though her makeup wasn't covering the gray smudges under her eyes.